1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus, a method and a system of rearing abalone, and in particular, a method of rearing which provides the abalone growing under minimal handling and disturbance. Thus, it decreases the abalone's mortality rate, promotes growth rate. It improves land-based abalone aquaculture to become more effective and economical.
2. Description of Related Art
A number of system have been developed to provide abalone rearing. As shown in FIG. 1, a conventional rearing trough 20' comprises a plurality of water troughs 211' connected with one another to form a water channel 21'. The water channel 21' is placed onto supports 24' of various heights. The young abalone 10' are settled into each of the water troughs 211' for rearing. However, such conventional method, apparatus and system used for abalone rearing have the following drawbacks:
1) As the water channel 21' of the rearing trough 20' comprises a plurality of water troughs 211' connected together in series, the water channel 21' has to be placed onto a plurality of supports 24' of different heights. This rearing trough 20' occupies space and the rearing area has not been fully utilized. Further, a large number of supports 24' are required for the rearing trough 20'. Thus, the cost of building a rearing site is high and the productivity of abalone is low.
2) The length of the water trough 211' of the water channel 21' is fixed and there is no partitions within the water trough 211'. The abalone are reared in a same water trough 211' throughout from young abalone stage until a mature abalone. Thus, this causes either an insufficient use of the rearing area, or insufficient area of growth, where the abalone are needed to be transferred for further rearing at a later stage. However, this will confuse abalone growing procedures.
3) As the space within the water trough 211' is limited, only when the young abalone becomes a mature abalone, new young abalone cannot be settled into the water trough 211'. Thus, the cost of production is high and the efficiency of production is low.
4) In abalone harvest, these abalone have to be collected one by one manually from the water trough 211'. The harvest operation is not convenient and the procedures of harvest are complicated. Thus, the cost of labor is high.
5) As the water trough 211' is a U-shaped structure, the abalone may crawl out from the water trough 211' and die. Thus, the fatality rate of abalone is high.
6) The conventional rearing trough 20' only utilizes manual power to supply feeds to the abalone thereby requiring a lot of manual labor and disturbing the abalone with external force and light and therefore increasing the cost and increasing the dying rate of the abalone.